I assume I am missing a lot here but could the actual platters not be removed and re-installed in another drive, by someone qualified of course?

Is it the case that when a drive goes down it scrubs all the data? I thought the platters themselves still had the data but the drive would not access them?

Am I way off?

That is an incredibly expensive process that will cost you thousands of dollars. It is easier to buy a new circuitboard and try replacing that although there is no guarantee that even the same revision will work because drive information is stored inside yours.

That is an incredibly expensive process that will cost you thousands of dollars. It is easier to buy a new circuitboard and try replacing that although there is no guarantee that even the same revision will work because drive information is stored inside yours.

But it can be done right? If I had the eleven herbs and spices on my external it could be recovered but at great expense?

I was under the impression that the only way to actually destroy a drive was to shred or drill the plates, or the whole drive, itself.

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Originally Posted by jammies

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But it can be done right? If I had the eleven herbs and spices on my external it could be recovered but at great expense?

I was under the impression that the only way to actually destroy a drive was to shred or drill the plates, or the whole drive, itself.

It depends upon the error, but in general you are correct, unless the platters are destroyed someone motivated could almost always get some data off the drive. But as H&L mentioned, the data recovery companies charge in the thousands to do the things you mentioned.

And yeah, Seagate just announced a firmware fix for a line of their drives that started dying like crazy, although from what I read, they are the 1.5TB Barracuda models. Drive heads going "click-click-click" sounds different.

Another thing that can sometimes work is using Spin-Rite (and I think MYK has mentioned it); although that is not a free program, I have known a couple people who recovered. Once again, that was not a head crash issue, that was a, "No Boot Sector"/"No O/S" type of issue where they didn't want to reformat the drive.

One of the cheapest ways to protect your drives is using redundancy and set up a RAID 1 (mirroring) option. Many people don't like that though, because you buy 2 identical drives but only get the drive space of one of them (since the same data is saved on both drives). But if one drive dies, you still have all your data, so you need to decide if your data is worth the extra $100 to stay safe. (and professional recovery will cost 20x that amount)

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The best thing about this thread is it has reminded me I haven't backed up my photos and such for a long time and I'm going home to do this tonight. I used to dump them to my wife's PC but she's running a laptop now so that's not as practical.

Bobble makes a good point about RAID. A couple of hundred bucks is pretty much worth the insurance....perhaps I should look at NAS options...

__________________Hockey is just a game the way ice cream is just glucose, love is just a feeling, and sex is just repetitive motion.

The best thing about this thread is it has reminded me I haven't backed up my photos and such for a long time and I'm going home to do this tonight. I used to dump them to my wife's PC but she's running a laptop now so that's not as practical.

Bobble makes a good point about RAID. A couple of hundred bucks is pretty much worth the insurance....perhaps I should look at NAS options...

Just remember that RAID only protects against mechanical or electronic failure. If you screw up and wipe the drive, or if a virus wipes the drive, or if Windows craps the bed and blows up the partition, those changes are faithfully mirrored to both drives.

You want the redundancy of RAID coupled with the safety net of a second copy stored somewhere else.

Bumping an old thread.
Had out 1 TB iomega external desktop hard drive to access some files.... and when finished I effing dropped it from about 1 foot onto glass tabletop.
Now the click of death is sounding, and drive not discoverable with PC, Mac or Linux.
Currently have it in the freezer, hoping this might work - but fully expecting it won't. Lots of cool, 'important' stuff on it - but nothing worth the $2500 I wuld expect from professional recovery places.

Anything new to try (not already mentioned in this or other threads)?
#### me

The best thing about this thread is it has reminded me I haven't backed up my photos and such for a long time and I'm going home to do this tonight. I used to dump them to my wife's PC but she's running a laptop now so that's not as practical.

Bobble makes a good point about RAID. A couple of hundred bucks is pretty much worth the insurance....perhaps I should look at NAS options...

Google Photos is awesome for that.

I'm looking at external hard drive for some of my RAW files but I rest a lot easier knowing all my photos are automagically uploaded to the cloud.

Bumping an old thread.
Had out 1 TB iomega external desktop hard drive to access some files.... and when finished I effing dropped it from about 1 foot onto glass tabletop.
Now the click of death is sounding, and drive not discoverable with PC, Mac or Linux.
Currently have it in the freezer, hoping this might work - but fully expecting it won't. Lots of cool, 'important' stuff on it - but nothing worth the $2500 I wuld expect from professional recovery places.

Anything new to try (not already mentioned in this or other threads)?
#### me

Clicking won't be fixed by the freezer trick. Recovery is in the $800 range. Not sure there is a lot to do for you. If you are going to write it off, a last ditch would be to open it up and see if the head is stuck, give the arm a little swing back and forth gently. Do it under a kitchen fan to try not to get dust settling on it. Then try again. I have had luck with this once, but fair warning, you will probably ruin any chance at professional recovery if you do this, so only do it as a last resort.

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